Wednesday - December 19, 2007

Sorry About Lack of Posting: Looking at New Blogging Software

I use a great little Mac blogging tool called iBlog. Intuitive, easy to use, but it is developed by a one man team.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated and in essence is in perpetual beta. The reason I like it is that it is a desktop blogging solution and it uses the power of the Mac OS to operate. Other blogging programs can learn from its ease of use and its power.

The problem of course, is that its future is bleak. As a result, I've been looking at alternatives. The best fit for me is Word Press. Even though I don't like the idea of the web interface, the SQL thingamabob, and that I have no idea what my published files look like, at least I can get the program to do what I want it to do!

So please bear with me as I make the transition to Word Press over the next few days.

Sunday - December 16, 2007

Paging Al Gore: How Do You Explain This?

Logically, we know "global warming", as preached by Al Gore and other ultra left radicals is based on emotion and not fact.

For instance, during the middle ages, until the late nineteenth century, much of the world went through something called the "the little ice age." Read this wiki entry for the background information.

At one time, when the Vikings settled southern Greenland in the 800s, the climate was favorable to farming and livestock. Thus the name 'Greenland' and not 'Iceland.' Then, by 1500, the Norse left Greenland, in part to colder, harsher weather.

The point, Greenland, during recorded history has experienced expanding and declining ice packs and warmer and colder temperatures.

Let's think about other ancient climate swings. Have you ever visited the American southwest? Have you seen the incredible pueblos, built by peoples who abandoned these great communal centers? Do you remember the National Park guides explaining that the Anasazi abandoned their pueblos, in part due to droughts that often lasted decades? Here are some good sources on the topic: here and here.

Obviously Ancient Native American's didn't know about carbon credits, because to listen to the global warming crowd, weather extremes only started happening in the last 30 years, due to American greed.

Okay, so what's my point? Researchers, actually a professor and an undergrad assistant went through temperature logs, travel descriptions, and other similar materials relating to Greenland. And guess what they found?

In the 1920s, Greenland's ice was melting, almost to the same extent as it is doing today.

Do you think that is what happened when the first Vikings were seduced by green pastures of Greenland 1200 years ago? Imagine that, the world warms and cools independently of man!

Two researchers here spent months scouring through old expedition logs and reports, and reviewing 70-year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s.

Their evidence reinforces the belief that glaciers and other bodies of ice are exquisitely hyper-sensitive to climate change and bolsters the concern that rising temperatures will speed the demise of that island's ice fields, hastening sea level rise.

The work, recently reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco , may help to discount critics' notion that the melting of Greenland 's glaciers is merely an isolated, regional event.

They recently recognized from using weather station records from the past century that temperatures in Greenland had warmed in the 1920s at rates equivalent to the recent past. But they hadn't confirmed that the island's glaciers responded to that earlier warming, until now. Read more....

Saturday - December 15, 2007

The Meaninglessness of Bali

Apparently, there was some agreement reached at Bali this week on greenhouse gases.

Two weeks of international climate talks marked by bitter disagreements and angry accusations culminated Saturday in a last-minute U.S. compromise and an agreement to adopt a blueprint for fighting global warming by 2009. Now comes the hard part.

Delegates from nearly 190 nations must fix goals for industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions while helping developing countries cut their own emissions and adapt to rising temperatures.

The rest of the world just doesn't understand how the government of the United States works. It isn't dictatorship like China where a government can do as it pleases. It isn't a parliamentary democracy where the ruling party governs as it sees fit until elections or a vote of no-confidence. And it isn't like the EU, which is run by unelected bureaucrats who govern by regulation.

In the U.S., the president may negotiate, but it is the Senate which advises and gives its consent to any treaty.

My take on Bali is that President Bush just threw his hands up and agreed to the global warming remedy in Bali, knowing full well that any treaty that results from there will likely never make it through the Senate intact.

And the rest of the world complains about "stupid" Americans, not knowing how to deal with other cultures.... Wholesale change will not fly in the Senate and the Bali participants should have known that the U.S. system prefers incremental change.

Friday - December 14, 2007

Arctic Ice Refreezing

Arctic ice is refreezing at a record pace. Imagine that.

The record melting of Arctic sea ice observed this summer and fall led to record-low levels of ice in both September and October, but a record-setting pace of re-freezing in November, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. Some 58,000 square miles of ice formed per day for 10 days in late October and early November, a new record. Read more....

And for visual proof, here is a picture of Arctic Ice in 1985 (the time before global warming) and 2007:

Friday - December 14, 2007

The Democrats, True to Their Nature, Surrender to Bush

True to their nature, the Democrats followed another plan right into surrender, giving into the evil Bush/Hitler on the Iraq War funding issue.

What should this tell you about the left? They have no fortitude. When things in Iraq started to go bad, they wanted to run. And how long did they stand up to Bush on funding the Iraq War? A month?

The left has no agenda, except they vaguely know they hate Bush and that America is evil and causes global warming. Their weakness is that, otherwise, they have no courage of the convictions, especially when it calls for long term thinking, planning, and execution.

The Democratic-led Congress authorized more Iraq war spending on Friday, sending President George W. Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy after failing again to impose a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.

The defense policy bill, approved 90-3 by the U.S. Senate, also expanded the size of the U.S. Army and set conditions on the Bush administration's plan to build a missile defense system in Europe.

The measure already had passed the House of Representatives and now goes to Bush, who is expected to sign it into law. It authorizes Pentagon programs expected to cost $506.9 billion during fiscal 2008, which began in October.

The bill authorized another $189.4 billion for the Iraq and Afghan wars, for which Congress has already approved some $600 billion. But it does not deliver the new money. That is done by appropriations legislation at the center of a big dispute on Capitol Hill. Read on....

Friday - December 14, 2007

Why?

The Palestinians have shown themselves unable to govern. Unable to restrain militants. And unable to grab the freedom of nationhood when presented to them on a silver platter.

Years ago, in my youth, I thought, "if only" Israel would give the Palestinians the West Bank, they would jump at the chance of freedom, but 15 years have shown that ultimately, the only thing the Palestinians want is the destruction of the Jewish state. That isn't a road to peace and we should have nothing to do with the Palestinian drive to the sea.

Why then, are we giving the West Bank $500 million in aid? Talk about sending money down a rat hole.

The United States will pledge between $500 million and $600 million in aid to the Palestinians at a donors conference in Paris next week, two U.S. officials said on Friday.

The officials, who asked not to be named because the figure has not been announced, could not say if the sum would include the roughly $400 million that U.S. President George W. Bush has already requested from the U.S. Congress for the Palestinians this year.

The money, which is to be announced on Monday the conference hosted by France, aims to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas against Hamas Islamists as he embarks on the first Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in seven years.

The one-day meeting is the financial sequel to last month's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference which launched formal peace talks aiming to brokering a deal on Palestinian statehood before Bush leaves office in January 2009.

Friday - December 14, 2007

The Great White Fleet

Naval historical file photo of the Great White Fleet. In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States, sent a portion of the Atlantic fleet on a world tour to test naval readiness, establish global presence and generate international goodwill. U.S. Navy photo

Thursday - December 13, 2007

Britain Signs its Sovereignty Over to Europe: The Lisbon Treaty

Today, late or not, Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Britain, signed a significant portion of Britain's sovereignty over to the European Union. Parliament is no longer supreme.

According to the Daily Mail, here is what Britain lost by signing the Treaty of Lisbon:

1 For a start, the treaty will make us more formally than before "citizens of the European Union".

For years we have carried "European Union passports"

But now we are to become citizens of this "Union" before anything else - just as the inhabitants of Texas are above all American citizens - with rights and duties overriding those attaching to our subordinate role as citizens of Britain.

2 One of the most conspicuous ways in which this "country called Europe" will project itself on the world stage, and to us as its citizens, is that it will for the first time have a permanent President, a powerful figurehead in office for up to five years.

We shall not yet be allowed to choose that President ourselves - he or she will be chosen for us by the "heads of government", the 27 prime ministers making up the European Council - but there will soon be pressure for "our" new President to be elected by all the "Union's" 490million "citizens".

3 Alongside him will be the EU's foreign-minister - the so-called "High Representative" - parading on the world stage as the 'Union's' chief international spokesman.

He will have his own diplomatic corps and worldwide embassies, intended gradually to replace those of individual countries such as Britain - and he will be able to exercise the further new right given by the treaty empowering the Union to make any kind of international treaty in our name.

4 The "Cabinet" of this new government will be the European Council - which is given a wholly new status by the treaty, with its members placed under a wholly new obligation - to put the objectives of the Union above those of their own country.

So when Gordon Brown or his successors attend future Council meetings, they will not do so representing Britain's interests but as servants of the "Union"

5 Remembering that power to propose-EU laws is already exercised solely by the unelected European Commission, another innovation is that for the first time each country will no longer have the right to be represented by its own Commissioner.

That means that, on occasions, laws affecting all our lives will be put forward entirely by officials from other countries.

6 The new treaty greatly extends the powers of the unelected Brussels government to dictate laws and policies overriding the wishes of elected national parliaments - although in some cases it has already been exercising those powers even before the treaty is signed.

7 The treaty will, for example, give a huge boost to setting up a "Common Defence Policy", based on interlocking all our armed forces and defence industries so that it becomes impossible for any country to act independently.

8 The EU-wide police forces will not be far behind.

This week our Foreign Secretary was unable to deny that we might one day see armed Romanian or Latvian policemen of the EU Gendarmerie Force, already taking shape, operating on the streets of Britain.

9 The treaty will set up a "Common Energy Policy", making it impossible-for Britain to act independently in looking after its own national needs, just when this is becoming more critical than ever before.

10 Another very serious threat to Britain's interests - as yet another City think-tank was warning this week - lies in the new opportunities the treaty will give our "partners" to introduce intrusive and politically motivated financial regulations which would undermine the one area of economic strength in which we still reign supreme: All those banking and financial services centred on the City on which all our national prosperity ultimately depends.

Thursday - December 13, 2007

One of the Hallmarks of a Republic is Thrift and Frugality: $16,000 in Flowers is Royal

Republics, by nature have always been frugal and its people and representatives thrifty. It isn't a surprise that our founders purposefully eschewed the formalities of a monarchal system by banning the titles of royalty. The heroes of the early republic were the yeoman farmers and not the extravagant aristocracy.

Spending $16,000 on flowers is an outrageous expense for the Speaker of the House. In the article below, Pelosi defends this expenditure by saying she "entertains" leaders of state. Funny, I remember the Constitution ceding foreign policy to the executive branch.

Pelosi said it would take a woman to clean up Washington. Apparently it takes one to spend $16,000 on flowers also.

Spending $16,000 on flowers sounds more like the last days of Rome than the finest days of a vibrant republic:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spent $16,000 on flowers since taking office, one reason why she spent 63 percent more in her high-profile inaugural year than her low-key predecessor did last year.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) spent a little more than $3 million in the first nine months of 2007, records show, compared to the $1.8 million Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spent during the same period in 2006.

Republicans are spending more as well. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has increased spending 23 percent above what Pelosi spent when she held the same job. That would be 16 percent if some of Hastert’s closing-out costs were deducted.

The spending patterns indicate Pelosi is seeking to restore the Speaker’s role as a counterweight to the president and reclaim some of the responsibilities Hastert had ceded to his aggressive majority leader, Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Because of their different roles, Pelosi aides say it is unfair to simply compare Pelosi’s spending to Hastert’s. Read more....

Wednesday - December 12, 2007

The Cost of Solar Power Coming Down?

We have read these proclamations since childhood. A cure for cancer, a car that gets 100 mpg, fusion power, a flying car....

The Voice of America has a story about Nanosolar, Inc, which supposedly has brought the cost of solar power down to that of coal and nuclear.

If so, then this should be a national priority.

"This is the innovation that has the potential to really, finally make solar power feasible, make widespread solar power affordable and a real viable option to coal and other hydrocarbon-based fuels," said executive editor Mike Haney.

He's talking about a new way of making thin-film solar cells that can be likened to printing a newspaper. Instead of rolls of paper, though, it uses rolls of thin metal foil, and the ink is a liquid form of the semiconductor material that converts light into electricity. It's all aimed at reducing costs, says Brian Sager, a co-founder of California-based Nanosolar, Inc., which developed the process.

"What Nanosolar has done is develop an aggregate of process innovations that dramatically decrease the cost of using this material, depositing it much more rapidly, much more efficiently, with much better capital efficiency as well, and thereby dropping the cost of the solar panels dramatically," said Sager. "We're aiming for grid parity."

Grid parity means consumers would pay about the same for solar power as they do now for coal or nuclear. In the United States, that's about 8 to10 cents per kilowatt hour, or about one-third the current price of electricity from solar cells.

As the company name suggests, its product relies on nanotechnology, which for some people might be a source of concern, but Sager says, not in this case.

"There are no nanoparticles in our final device," he explained. "So we use the nanoparticles as a way to coat this ink onto the foil, but then when we process it, those particles are attached together in a continuous film, so there's no longer discrete particles in the final device, so we don't have any risk of exposure of nanoparticles."

The solar panel foil can be rolled out as roofing material or put on the sides of buildings in a city.

Sager also imagines land just outside urban areas covered with his solar energy-collecting powersheets.

"And the solar panels are interconnected to create a certain amount of output, which could be used to power a city," he said. "And this could be done just outside the city so that you minimize the transmission loss from getting that electricity from the [solar] power plant to the end users."

Nanosolar has factories in Germany and a big, new one in California, so economies of scale should make an important difference in the impact of solar power.

"When they get this San Jose plant online, they're going to create more megawatts worth of solar cells in a year than every other solar plant in the U.S. [combined], and that's only one plant," says Popular Science editor Haney. "So surely once they get that one going, and, you know, as some of these other companies catch them and develop their own ways of doing it and start cranking it out, I think- I think the leap in scale of solar being used is going to be pretty incredible in the next five to 10 years." Read more....

Wednesday - December 12, 2007

Swiss Politics Gets Feisty

We'll have to see, but if Blocher isn't voted back into the cabinet, Switzerland's 50 years of "consensus" government might be at an end.

Less than two months after Christoph Blocher led the far-right Swiss People's Party to a comfortable election victory, parliamentarians ejected the controversial justice minister from the cabinet Wednesday.

The vote placed a question mark over the future of Switzerland's system of consensus government. In an election by Parliament of the seven-member Federal Council, which functions as Switzerland's cabinet, lawmakers voted for another SVP member, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, perceived as more moderate, over Blocher.

After the vote, the party president, Ueli Maurer, said on Swiss television "either we are in the government with Blocher or we're going into opposition."

The SVP's withdrawal would end the "magic formula" that has divided cabinet seats among the four major parties since 1959.

"The whole system of concordance is what's in question," said Miriam Behrens of the Green Party, one of the parties that voted against Blocher.Read more....

Tuesday - December 11, 2007

Global Warming Loons Hate Children

From the people who champion abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, they now want to tax your carbon emission clones.

Some day, if this global warming religion becomes establish, women will be forced to abort their third child, by law.

For the left, the cause is always more important than the individual.

Parents who have three or more babies should be charged a lifelong tax to offset the carbon emissions their extra children produce, a medical expert says.

A new report published in an Australian medical journal has called for parents to be charged $5,000 a head for every child after their second, and an annual tax of up to $800 every year thereafter.

And couples who get sterilised would be eligible for carbon credits under the controversial proposal.

Perth specialist Professor Barry Walters is heavily critical of the $4,000 baby bonus, saying that paying new parents extra for every baby fuels more children, more emissions and "greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour''.

Instead, it should be replaced with a "baby levy'' in the form of a carbon tax in line with the "polluter pays'' principle, he wrote in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.

"Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being,'' said Prof Walters, an obstetrician at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth. Sustainable Population Australia suggested a maximum of two, he said. Read more....

Monday - December 10, 2007

Palace of Emperor Augustus Reopens to Public

I saw this little blurb from the Times Online about the palace of Emperor Augustus being reopened early next year.

The palace of the Emperor Augustus on the Palatine Hill will partially reopen to the public on March 2 after years of restoration work, officials said yesterday. Since the palace was closed in the 1980s, at least £8.6 million has been spent on the porticoed garden of Rome's first emperor. Work has included the repair of precious frescoes that had been reduced to fragments.

Sunday - December 09, 2007

Dealing with Illegal Immigrants Through Attrition

The supporters and enablers of illegal immigration, always argue against those of us on the other side by saying that we want mass deportations. They go on to say that mass deportations are impossible and therefore, the only real alternative is amnesty.

Of course there is another route to repatriating illegals to their home countries and that is through attrition. Take away their illicit jobs and deny government benefits, and their is nothing to draw or keep illegal aliens in the United States.

D.A. King, an advocate for stopping illegal immigration, has an excellent editorial on this subject:

The transparent argument from those who will never relent on the amnesty-again agenda is that because we cannot round up and deport more than 20 million illegal aliens by sundown tomorrow (false choice "A"), the only other option is to legalize them as part of some contrived and disingenuous "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" program (false choice "B").

I know what the reader must be thinking: "Why is he bringing that up again? The amnesty attempt of 2007 was defeated in the U.S. Senate in June!"

Here is why: Just weeks after this year's attempt at forcing the now not-so-trusting American people to accept the legalization option, another nationwide push began to prepare them for the next one - but not until the elections are over.

But, for the "legalization now, legalization tomorrow and legalization forever" crowd, there is a rather inconvenient truth emerging in news stories from around the country.

Nearly every week Americans paying attention can read news reports from places where the law is actually being enforced about illegal aliens giving up and leaving for more hospitable places to look for a better life, either in other states here or back to their home countries.

Simply put, again: Enforcement works.

For many in the amnesty industry, the fervent hope is that either many Americans don't realize that the legalization option was tried - and failed - more than 21 years ago, or they can be convinced that Albert Einstein was wrong when he remarked that one definition of insanity was "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

It is past time that pundits, editors and candidates for political office begin to recognize and discuss the third and seldom-mentioned option: Attrition through enforcement.

It doesn't take another Einstein to recognize that the idea of gradual attrition of the illegal population through the enforcement of existing laws while at the same time stopping illegal entries by securing our borders - at any cost - will work. It simply takes good old-fashioned common sense. Read the rest here.

And in a related story, opponents of Arizona's strict employment law, which will for all intents and purposes put an end to the mass job market for illegals in that state, has survived an important court challenge:

A federal judge late Friday tossed out the lawsuit challenging Arizona's employer-sanctions law, setting the stage for a quick second round of legal action before Jan. 1, when the law is set to take effect.

U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ruled that the business and Latino groups aimed their legal fire at the wrong targets in suing the governor and the state attorney general. Instead, they should have brought their complaint against the 15 county attorneys charged with enforcing the law.

The judge also suggested that the lawsuit was premature because there is no evidence anyone has been harmed. The ruling stunned attorneys representing the 12 groups that brought the suit in July.

It has potentially wide-reaching implications for Arizona businesses. Under the law any business that is found to have knowingly hired an illegal worker is subject to sanctions ranging from probation to a 10-day suspension of its business licenses. A second violation would bring permanent revocation of the license. Read more....

Secure the borders and enforce our laws---what a concept.....

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email brianbonner90-at-gmail-dot-com and let us know at what level you would like to participate.

Sunday - December 09, 2007

British Troops Go After Taliban at Musa Qala

NATO forces spearheaded by the British are engaging the Taliban at Musa Qala in Afghanistan.

Musa Qala, in the southern province of Helmand, is symbolic for both sides in the conflict in Afghanistan as the only sizeable Afghan town controlled by the Taliban.

Forty-eight hours after the operation began, there was less fighting on Sunday as troops resupplied and positioned themselves for the assault on the town.

"If you think of it like a house, the house is surrounded, the Afghan army is waiting outside. We are in the process of kicking the door in, then the Afghan army is going through it," said British army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Eaton.

"Right now it is going according to plan. As to how tough the fighting will or will not be, that is up to the insurgents," General Dan McNeill, the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, told reporters.

"If the insurgent wants to fight then the Afghan forces going into Musa Qala will be up to the task," he said.

The operation is expected to last several days, but Afghan and foreign forces appeared to have scored an early victory with the capture of two Taliban civilian leaders in Helmand. Read more....

Now, Marines from 40 Commando and soldiers from Right Flank Scots Guards using Warrior and Mastiff Armoured Vehicles are back on patrol in the area outside the town, and conducting operations designed to disrupt and confuse the Taliban and destabilise their supply routes.

"This is part of a longer term strategy to keep the Taliban unsettled and confused. We have frustrated them in what they consider to be their heartland by manoeuvring into the area, and by disrupting their resupply and other operations.

"It is also crucial to be able to tell local Afghans, ‘ISAF is here at the invitation of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to support you and that we are going to help remove the Taliban from your homes and your lives'."

This latest operation began two weeks ago with Bravo Company from 40 Commando Royal Marines pushing north in Viking armoured vehicles, driving across the Helmand river north of Sangin, creating a bridgehead for the Scots Guards convoy. There has been on and off contact with the Taliban who have attacked British forces with rockets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

Having established positions around Musa Qaleh, British troops have been carrying out reconnaissance patrols deliberately designed to show the residents, as well as the Taliban, that ISAF has not forgotten about the town.

The patrol is supported by soldiers from B Squadron Kings Royal Hussars in Mastiff armoured vehicles and by 105 mm guns served by men from 4 Regiment Royal Artillery. The patrol is supported by an Immediate Replenishment Group and additional supplies are flown in by air as and when required.

Saturday - December 08, 2007

Bali Conference: China's Good Intentions Count more than America's Actions

Remember this chart from our previous article on the Climate Change Performance Index?

The one where countries are rated on their good intentions? The one where China, which now pollutes more than the U.S., gets a better rating because somewhere off in the future, China promises to be greener?

Read this New York Time's article on China's dirty truck engines and contaminated fuels and count how many times they are compared to the "cleaner" engines and fuels in the United States.

Trucks here burn diesel fuel contaminated with more than 130 times the pollution-causing sulfur that the United States allows in most diesel. While car sales in China are now growing even faster than truck sales, trucks are by far the largest source of street-level pollution.

Tiny particles of sulfur-laden soot penetrate deep into residents’ lungs, interfering with the absorption of oxygen. Nitrogen oxides from truck exhaust, which build all night because cities limit truck traffic by day, bind each morning with gasoline fumes from China’s growing car fleet to form dense smog that inflames lungs and can cause severe coughing and asthma.

The 10 million trucks on Chinese roads, more than a quarter of all vehicles in this country, are a major reason that China accounts for half the world’s annual increase in oil consumption. Sating their thirst helped push the price of oil to nearly $100 a barrel this year, before a recent decline, and has propelled China past the United States as the world’s largest emitter of global-warming gases. Read more.....

Saturday - December 08, 2007

More Insanity from Bali: Third World Pollution Doesn't Count

The Bali conference, if it wasn't so dangerous to American interests, could actually be funny. Today's belly laugh comes from China and other third world nations who argue the west has polluted longer, therefore they shouldn't be limited by any new pollution controls.

For instance, China, with an economy that is 5 times smaller than that of the U.S., now pollutes slightly more than the world's source of all things evil. The leftist, to confuse the issue, describe pollution per person. So of course, a nation like China always claims, that per person, they pollute less than the U.S.

Instead, if you look at pollution as related to GDP, you see an entirely different picture. China, with an economy that is 5 times smaller (see this story), now produces as much pollution, if not more than the U.S. So in other words, the U.S. economy is obviously more efficient in terms of pollution as it produces more products than China.

The bottom line, the eco-leftist in the West and the communists in China have something in common in that they want the living standards and the industrial output of the U.S. to decline.

So, I guess another new scientific 'fact' of global warming will be that western pollution is worse than third world pollution.

China, which some believe has surpassed the U.S. as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, questioned the fairness of binding cuts when its per capita emissions are about one-sixth of America's. It said, too, that it has only been pumping pollutants into the atmosphere for a few decades, whereas the West has done so for hundreds of years.

"China is in the process of industrialization and there is a need for economic growth to meet the basic needs of the people and fight against poverty," said Su Wei, a top climate expert for the government and member of its delegation at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali.

"I just wonder whether it's fair to ask developing countries like China to take on binding targets," Su said Friday. "I think there is much room for the United States to think whether it's possible to change (its) lifestyle and consumption patterns in order to contribute to the protection of the global climate." Read more....

Friday - December 07, 2007

Have You Heard about the Climate Change Performance Index Released at Bali?

The Climate Conference in Bali is a showcase of leftist thinking.

The damnedest and probably the most humorous thing to come out of Bali is the "Climate Change Performance Index. The index, put out by this group, of course puts the evil United States at the bottom of their list. Here is their index of those who they consider the worst "climate" offenders. What you will see of course, is that their list has no relationship to actual pollution rates or policies.

Is this chart based on real levels of pollution? Of course not! It is almost like it was created by a leftist college professor who makes 20% of your grade dependent on how "hard" you try, irrespective of your actual results. Talk about taking "national" self-esteem to the extreme.

Here is how this Germanwatch came up with these results:

In order to moderate the impact of these aspects on the index score, the CCPI takes a country's changes in actual emissions-the emissions trend-with a weighting of 50 percent and its climate policy with a weighting of 20 percent into account.

Moreover, a country's current positive ranking in the CCPI could not be maintained if the government decided to increase the use of coal due to rising gas and oil prices and concerns about energy safety. A strategy of this kind represents a step back from sustainable climate policy and shoes its negative effects on a country's index score.

In case you didn't quite get that, here it is in picture form:

So in their index, actual pollution counts for only 30%.

Climate policy for 20% and "emissions trend" for a whopping 50%. And as the chart notes, fast growing third world countries get extra credit because they are poor and aren't the United States.

Let's think about this report rationally. It down plays actual emissions.

It defines climate policy in terms of the left. In other words, government policy. Of course, that automatically penalizes free market systems where governments have limited roles due to the fact that in free societies, governments are limited by definition and depend upon market mechanisms to deal with pollution.

And it awards the largest curve to emissions trends. But on what planet do the years 1998 to 2000 and 2003 to 2005 constitute a trend? That's right, this group calculated a trend using 6 years as their data source.

In a nutshell, China, which has surpassed the U.S. in terms of real pollution, is awarded a better standing because, it is a third world country and it promises to do better in the future.

Think about that. China, which has more coal fired plants than the U.S., is considered a more eco-friendly nation!

Thursday - December 06, 2007

Apostasy in Britain

Saw this over at Amboy Times, where a daughter of a British Imam who converted to Christianity is under the threat of death.

The religion of peace isn't a religion. It is a political movement, much like communism. You either follow the party line or you get sent to the gulag or worse.

A British imam's daughter is living in fear of her life under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.

The young woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in the north of England, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago.

Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times how she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage.

The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

She was speaking on the eve of the launch of a new charity in London today to promote greater religious awareness. Muslims in Britain who wish to convert to Christianity are living in fear of their lives because of Islamic apostasy laws, a senior Church of England bishop will warn at the invitaton-only launch in west London.

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, will claim "freedom to believe" is under threat in Britain because of Islamic hostility to conversion.

Hannah, now employed in multi-faith youth work and who gives talks to churches on Islam, is the daughter of a Lancashire imam whose seven other children are demanding she return to Islam. She has been in hiding,

since her home was attacked by a group of men armed with knives, axes and hammers, in 1994. She will describe today how she is in fear of her life after the death threats against her were recently renewed.

She said: "I left home and I had nowhere to go. My religious education teacher gave me somewhere to live. Even though she tried to make me stay at home on Sundays, I am quite rebellious by nature and I started to go to church with her out of curiosity."

She said she had been in hiding, on and off, ever since, and has now been given a telephone number she can call for an instant response by police should she need help. The latest threat was a text message from one of her brothers, warning he could not be responsible for his actions if she did not return to Islam. Read more....